Playing in the Sunshine!

The sun is shining! What a great day to get outside and play! Enjoy the sunshine, feel the warmth on your face! Find some pebbles, make some nature art, read a book! Take time to soak in the sunshine!
Click on this link to find out how to make a simple nature journal with your child!

Tinker Art!

We had so much fun with the tinker tray today! The kiddos just LOVE exploring with the materials! 

                            

Fun and simple Fine Motor Game to Make at home!

Materials: Pringles Can, Hole punch, circle stickers, markers and matching pipe cleaners

1.Use the hole punch to punch holes in the lid of a cleaned out Pringles can.
2. Place stickers are each hole. 
3. Color the stickers to match the pipe cleaners
4. Decorate the outside of the container as you wish.
5. PLAY!

Place the lid on the can. Use your fingers to push the pipe cleaners through the matching hole! Encourage your child to name the colors as they push them through! 

The kiddos had a lot of fun playing with this toy all morning!! Thanks, Jill for making this awesome new toy!

We are ROYALLY thrilled!

Miss Emily made us an awesome castle to play in! 

The kiddos had so much fun playing, reading and relaxing in the castle!!  

So much fun!!

This is why we do process art and not product art!

When you tell a child that they are doing it wrong or using the wrong colors you aren't just criticizing their art, you criticizing the child.  Allowing your child to explore freely will help build their self esteem and their knowledge of self!  

What is Art?

 Children should be allowed to create in their way! The above picture shows the artwork of our ECFE class with students 1 year - 3 years! We explored with color, texture, different types of paint and salt!  


The frogs were part of our guided drawing learning. The students follow what the teacher is drawing to create their own version of the picture. This day we did frogs! Whatever the students produce is perfect! It is fun seeing how amazingly unique they all look!  

 Messy Hands are Artistic Hands! We use our hands to explore texture when we paint!

We enjoy working together to create cooperative art! Today we worked on creating on canvas! We created the Four Seasons on Canvas using finger paint and the best painting tool ever!  OUR HANDS!!

The final product is AMAZING!

Poppity Pop pop pop!

BUBBLE WRAP!! We had a lot of really big bubble wrap in our room! We took off our shoes and walked on it to pop the bubbles! The students really enjoyed feeling the bubbles pop under their toes! 
This is a great sensory activity. Children really enjoy the sound of popping and the feel under their feet! Next time you get something wrapped in bubble wrap, put it on the floor and let your child jump, run and walk all over it!

Calm Down Bottle

When we sit down at circle time we are usually coming from an active learning time; free play, gym, focus groups. We need to learn to give our bodies a chance to calm down so that our mind is clear and ready to learn.  To teach this to the children, we have a glitter bottle. We shake the bottle to get all of the glitter moving and swirling. This is like our minds when we are learning and active. We put the bottle down and let it sit quietly. All of the glitter settles to the bottom of the jar. It is still there, there is still some moving, but it is calm. That is how our bodies react when given a moment to sit calmly and relax before starting to learn. We always take a moment to watch the glitter and sit quietly to calm our minds so that we are clear and ready to learn!

Tinker Trays

I have introduced the magic of Tinker Tray to the students!  These trays allow the children to create with common objects. The trays are available whenever the students would like to create! Their creations are truly their own and come with their very own stories! You can put together a simple tinker tray at your house with a muffin tin and anything that you can find! The children are really enjoying seeing how these items work together, how they react with one another and what happens when you add glue...lots of glue! Exploration is an important key to childhood and early learning! 

How we start our mornings!

                                                    
Every morning, we start our day doing Yoga! It is a great way to focus our minds and stretch our bodies to prepare to learn! Ask your child to show you some of our yoga moves!